Yay Hardwire! Glad you picked that module up. I've been trying to think of ideas for a game but have precisely zero right now.

Ah. Well, ideas, I nearly always have. Time, not so much. To wit:

If I was to run a Trav game right now, I'd take some inspiration from the OSR style funnel games (i.e. a survival-oriented game with relatively high mortality). I'd set it in a sector where two major powers are at war, and the objective is to develop a smuggling route through the war zones to markets which are hungry for the goods due to the interdiction of trade occurring in the war zone.

Mechanically, I'd eliminate freight routes along the front-line systems or between warring systems. I'd boost the risk level on the random encounter tables, but also pay premiums for those who managed to cross the gauntlet. Smuggling to front line systems would be possible, but dangerous. Gas giants would be frequently guarded as a strategic resource. Essentially, a high risk, high reward game where turnover is expected and acceptable, both for players and PCs, where I could procedurally generate much of the content using the system encounter tables.

You would be a group of travelers that was going about your business when you can across a precious cargo that everyone and their brother was trying to get their hands on. it is up to you how you proceed but every choice will have it's advantages and disadvantages and you must avoid all interested parties until you have turned it over.

Looking at the skills section I ran into a question that I couldn't find an answer for so I crafter an answer. Comments will be welcome.

The book states that a Traveller might have Engineer 0, allowing him to make Engineer skill checks without the unskilled penalty. And that is fine so if you have Engineering 0 you have been taught the basics behind Engineering and can perform with average competency in the specialties associated with Engineering. However it doesn’t go into what happens if you gain level 1 in a specialty without first gaining the base skill at level 0. So below is a house rule of how I will handle it.

House rule: For the skills that have a specialty if you gain ranks in a specialty without first gaining ranks in the base skill (IE… Sensors 1 without first gaining Electronics) you will have no rating in the base skill or any of the other specialties. However gaining additional ranks in that specialty will act as a Jack of all trades for the base skill and all of the other specialties of base skill (IE… Sensors 3 will act as Jack of all trades 2 for Electronics, Comms, Computers, Remote Ops and you would only be at a -1 penalty when employing those skills). The only exception to this rule is sciences; learning about Robotics isn’t going to teach you anything about Xenology.

Reasoning: I feel that through OTJ you can pick us a specialty without knowing much about the base skill or any other related skill. IE… Networking 1: If I were to teach you about switching and all there is to know about that layer 2 concept, you could be proficient working on switches. You would not know that much about routing or traffic control (Firewalls, ACL’s). Networking 2: I start teaching you about layer 3 switching, now you know more about the basic concept of networking including routing and traffic control therefore you could struggle through working on a router. ETC…

First, it just makes skills more complicated to keep track of, in an already somewhat complicated system. Now I somehow have to keep track of which level 1 skills don't have level 0 proficiency. Yuck! More complexity is never good.

Second, I don't think you can learn advanced Engineering techniques without understand basic Engineering concepts. I mean, you can't understand advanced Physics without understanding basic Physics concepts. You can't write advanced law without learning basic grammar and sentence structure. You can't become a marksman sniper without learning basic gun techniques such as proper breathing and timing. You just can't skip steps like that in many of these specialties.

I don't think it is a good idea either. Let's not make things more complicated then necessary.

So in the now defunct Traveller game I was in recently, my Broker had a term where he got both Comms skills and a science. I figured, he may have helped out with either traffic control at the spaceport or coordinating cargo handlers. And also learned a bit about Economics while he was at it.

So he can operate a radio. Big deal. Doesn't mean he knows how to fix it. Or, in the case of Vargr or Vilani, how that damn thing even works. Vilani, because of their strange way of teaching tech skills and Vargr because, hey, if it works, who needs to know how? Yeah, these guys are curious, but mostly about things they can eat or otherwise exploit. So there.